"As our solar system's interstellar visitor hides behind the Sun, humankind's expeditions to Mars have stepped up to provide an extra set of eyes. On Tuesday, the European Space Agency announced that two of its spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet had used their cameras to snap photos of the mysterious object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, as it whizzed past over 18 million miles away from them."
"Deputizing the Mars spacecraft to try observe the comet was a literal shot in the dark, since both of their cameras are designed for imaging Mars' well-lit surface, and not tiny specks in the night sky - but it paid off. 3I/ATLAS in the CaSSIS timelapse is as clear as day, showing that its coma - the glowing halo of gas and dust that gives comets their distinct look - is around several thousand miles across."
On October 3, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express captured images of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS during its closest approach to Mars, roughly 18 million miles from the planet. The TGO used its Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) to record a timelapse showing a glowing dot moving across the night sky, identified as the comet's coma. The coma measures on the order of several thousand miles across. Both orbiters' cameras are optimized for Mars surface imaging rather than faint targets in deep space, yet they successfully imaged the object. The images provide the closest spacecraft observations of 3I/ATLAS to date and will undergo further analysis.
Read at Futurism
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